STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The view must be pretty good from where Rep. Michael Grimm sits these days.

That’s because Grimm’s flood insurance bill has passed the House and Senate and is now awaiting Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature.

“It’s a good political story,” Grimm (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) said after the bill had passed the House. “This bill arguably could be one of the most substantial bi-partisan bills to pass this entire Congress.”

The bi-partisan passage is the real feather in the cap for Grimm. It passed the House 306-91, and the Senate 72-22.

Grimm said that he and other Republicans, particularly House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), worked with House Dems like Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Gregory Meeks (D-Queens) and Cedric Richmond (D-La.) to get the bill done.

Cantor, Grimm said, played the role of closer in the House, taking over negotiations with Dems in the House and Senate.

“In that last week, Eric Cantor was really in charge of negotiating with Democrats, and they had several things they wanted put in the bill, and we put them in,” Grimm said. “It wasn’t like, ‘No, you have eat what we’re giving you.’ They were good ideas.”

The 18 percent cap on yearly insurance premiums increases was one of those issues, Grimm said.

“We had it as a 15 percent average,” Grimm said. “We didn’t go that extra step to make it 18 percent. So that’s something from the Democrat side that we adopted, because it was good policy.”

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) advocated for for the cap.

It’s been quite the roller-coaster ride for Grimm over the last two-plus months.

He sparked a storm of nationwide criticism earlier this year when he threatened a NY1 reporter. That was after a Texas woman was arrested by the FBI for allegedly making illegal donations to Grimm’s 2010 campaign.

Grimm kept working the flood bill even in the midst of those controversies.

He said the bill should serve as an example to dysfunctional Washington.

“If we can work across the aisle on something as important as flood insurance,” he said, “then maybe we can start tackling some of the big things, like our national debt, which obviously is more polarizing.”

And the bill’s not a bad thing to have on your resume in an election year.

“Absolutely,” said Grimm, adding that working across the aisle and compromising a little bit is the only way to get things done in D.C., even if it has opened him up to criticism from conservatives.

“I have taken knocks from the far right,” he said, “and I actually believe, for all my colleagues, if the far left doesn’t like it, and the far, far right doesn’t like it, it’s probably a good bill.”

Grimm said, “So you have to give and take a little bit, and in this case, we actually got a better product because we worked together. It’s a better bill.”